Barrett Trotter makes a throw in the first half of Auburn's A-Day game

It's Puppy-ville everywhere on Auburn's football team. Not merely in the secondary, where Bell's 24 games and three starts in the secondary qualifies him for status as an old dog.

"Got a lot of youngsters back there," he said.

Bell was in a lounge in the Auburn football complex Tuesday afternoon. Over his shoulder, protected in a glass case, was the crystal football emblematic of the Tigers' 2010 national championship, proud as Excalibur.

Attached to a facade above a set of steps leading toward the locker room, is a sign

"235 Days Prep

Are You Ready To

Unite & Defend"

To defend is far-fetched.

To unite is the task Auburn coach Gene Chizik and his staff have undertaken since they locked the crystal football away and started pointing to the new season with a basically rebuilt lineup.

That season begins Saturday morning at 11, hosting Utah State.

"We've got a bunch of guys who haven't really played before so it's as big as game as ever," said quarterback Barrett Trotter.

Funny, but when Trotter was asked about 300-pound freshman center Reese Dismukes, who'll start where All-SEC Ryan Pugh was last year, he said "it's big shoes to fill."

Big shoes?

Trotter should know. He has clown-sized shoes to fill, with the departure of Cam Newton.

Star-struck students were pointing out "Cam parks his moped there" spots on campus last fall, and in his spot is the bearded, unassuming Trotter, who shrugs that "I'm just another guy walking around (campus) most of the time" that fellow students barely notice.

"It's Puppy-ville," to the starving semicircle of journalists surrounding Bell, passes for a lyrical quote after a 30-minute press conference with Chizik, dry as a communion wafer.

Auburn doesn't pay Chizik to do a stand-up act.

It pays him to coach.

He does that nicely.

Dresses nicely, too. All snazzy in a dark suit, blue and white striped shirt with white collar, orange tie with matching show-and-blow, he offered a scouting report on the Aggies, after which you'd have thought they would be two-touchdown favorites over the Green Bay Packers.

He acknowledged Auburn's youth and that "we're going to have to get past our reluctance to do (play them), and just do it. That's just where we're at."

Chizik said there would be "anywhere between 25-30 players (in their first college game), which ought to get extremely interesting. We're going to have a lot of fun with it."

An east Alabama radio station is having fun with it. Its tiebreaker on its pick-'em contest this weekend is the over/under on Auburn newbies who play.

Most preseason predictions about the Tigers give only faint hope to make much noise. An 8-4 prediction is a downright geyser of optimism.

"Really, to be honest with you, I'm not really aware of what is swirling around out there, whether they think we're going to be 14-0 again or 0-14," Chizik said.

Predictions "are kind of non-applicable to us in a way," he said.

Maybe in the coaches' offices. But not down in Puppy-ville.

"As a team, coaching staff and players, we know what people don't expect of us," Bell said, "and what we have to do to prove them wrong."

Contact Mark McCarter at mark.mccarter@htimes.com or follow him on Twitter at markmccarter